Demonization (C) >>> Demonization (B)

At that moment something changed, something that Mitrass did not know, but he felt that change.

In that fraction of a moment, Seraphina raised her hand.

From Mitrass' perspective it was a slow movement that would not even make it in time, and would be of no use anyway.

Just as Mitrass' sword was about to collide-that hand that seemed impossible to reach simply accelerated in that slow world.

BANG!

A great impact sounded but it was not against what was expected, but against a golden staff, which began to appear in Seraphina's hand that had arrived in time.

With a quick flick of her wrist, Seraphina tilted it,

SSSSSrrr-

The blade ran along the golden handle, scraping it, deflecting the blow that was heading straight for her head.

Art of Lust: Fourth Posture.

A minimal adjustment of feet.

Seraphina spun on her axis, completing the redirection and sending Mitrass' attack straight to the ground.

BROOM!

The impact shattered the rock. Nothing more.

Mitrass was incredulous. But it wasn't just that. Without looking away, he saw Seraphina's appearance begin to change.

Her white hair turned pink.

Clothes began to disappear, leaving barely something that could be called that.

Two pink horns emerged.

Her blue eyes turned pink... and in them was something different.

A clear intention.

'I will kill you.'

It wasn't just hostility or something they could easily overlook. It was a direct warning. More real, more dangerous than before.

Mitrass understood it instantly and, before she completed her move, he adopted a defensive stance, crossing his heavy sword in front of his body.

Erupting Embrace.

BOOM!

"Uagh-!"

The impact of the fully formed spear was brutal, and something that even Mitrass, who wasn't underestimating Seraphina, didn't expect at all.

Seraphina attacked from a low angle, completely breaking through his defense.

Mitrass was sent hurtling at high speed towards the roof of the cave, already on the verge of collapse.

That wasn't just any hit.

Seraphina had absorbed some of Mitrass's strength... and had given it back amplified with her new power gained from demonizing herself with the core of the tenth-ranked beast.

-------

Strength: 401 → 882

Mana: 412 → 906

Agility: 398 → 876

Defense: 308 → 678

Vitality: 420 → 924

--------

A 120% increase in all her stats.

"bleegh!"

But the price was obvious.

Swollen, throbbing veins protruded from her chest, pulsing violently, straining the flesh to the limit.

Some looked like they were about to burst.

Seraphina was spitting blood in great gulps.

She had gone beyond what her body could take.

The brutal surge was tearing her apart from the inside.

Every cell seemed about to explode. If she didn't release that power, it would become really dangerous...

Without hesitation, she concentrated an enormous amount of mana.

She pointed her spear at Mitrass and shouted:

"Lux Demolitor."

The sphere of light that emerged was incomprehensibly more powerful than before.

BOOM!!!!

It impacted against Mitrass and detonated.

Everything glowed again, as if a mini sun had been born in the cave.

The sound disappeared for an instant-

Rumble - BRRIIIMM!

When it returned, it sounded as if the earth were lamenting, as if it were about to break apart.

The shockwave swept the surroundings; debris hit the ground, and light reached every corner.

Even the manna in the air trembled to the point that the senses were dulled.

The whole place had been shaken by the impact.

BANG!

In the midst of the roar, another thud was heard, followed by a sound that cut through the air.

In that world still bathed in light, Seraphina did not stand idly by, nor did she wait for the result of the explosion.

She lunged towards the last spot where she had seen Noha and unloaded a brutal blow.

Noha was hit squarely and was thrown upwards, as was Mitrass... the next one was Oryx, but although he could not stop the attack on Noha until the impact was heard, he had more than enough time to flee, making Seraphina fail once again.

Seraphina didn't care.

She looked up. The light had waned; the cave ceiling, which had once threatened to collapse, was no more. In its place, the night sky was exposed.

The attack had opened up several meters of earth.

Mitrass and the other two were still ascending on the accumulated inertia.

Mitrass was seriously injured, but still alive. Seraphina looked closely to see why and realised that the remains of his armour still seemed to have some function, as they began to disintegrate into a cloud of dust.

Noha, on the other hand, was covered by a crystalline layer. On his chest, a beetle-like insect remained attached.

Apart from the hand he was missing, he was practically intact. His gaze, filled with fury, was directed downwards.

"Ugh...Cough! It's still not enough. I need to get more out. Qetesh, can you do it or not?"

[[Piece of cake]]

"Okay."

Seraphina was still in pain. The veins in her body pulsed more violently, deforming her skin grotesquely.

Chaotic energy was escaping from every pore.

Still, she raised the spear aimed at them.

Noha and Mitrass immediately felt a great bad feeling.

Noha began to conjure another circle while giving orders to the only creature that still remained on the ground - the other one had already died - the reason, it was the same reason why he was intact after such a violent blow.

He had lost control of the situation. Either he regained it, or he would be swept away by Seraphina's flow... an increasingly lethal one.

Still, his reaction was a very slow step.

Before the beast reached her Seraphina's spear changed shape, taking on a strange, staff-like structure and aimed at him .

Art of the Nexus Ballistic, First Stance: "Chaos Bullet."

BANG!

A dry rumble echoed. A small light shot out from the golden staff.

Noha had no choice: she canceled the current summon and poured a huge amount of mana into the crystalline beast in her chest.

It was her defensive summon.

A very rare tenth rank beast: the Crystal Devourer.

BRROOMM!

A gigantic, savage explosion erupted at the point of collision and began to devour everything in its path, expanding uncontrollably.

Seraphina saw it and, from experience, reacted instantly.

"Aegis Clara," "Obductio Noctis," "Praesidium Fulminis." "Art of Lust, Fourth Stance - ugh!"

She resisted as best she could. She cast three high-level defensive spells and still braced herself for when they, inevitably, broke.

Her body was in such a precarious state that even with near-perfect control, she felt she was losing it.

She gritted her teeth. Placing her spear in front of her, she absorbed the residual energy from the impact of her own uncontrollable attack, and when she finally finished—

An enormous amount of energy was building up inside her, pushing a body that was already at its limit.

She moved immediately and aimed at the giant rock serpent Noha had summoned earlier.

Art of Lust, Third Stance: Seductive Touch.

She redirected all that chaotic energy, along with her own. Mana was escaping her like never before, but it was necessary: if she didn't release that excess, her body would collapse.

CRACK.

The beast, also damaged by the collateral effect of the art and still shaken by the explosion, reacted too late.

When it tried to defend itself, Seraphina was already in front of it.

She pierced its scales, with the spear.

"Noxaris Regnum Floreat."

From the point of impact, a dark spell immediately spread.

Tentacles of shadow slipped between scales and flesh, invading the interior, destroying it from within.

The snake tried to resist.

It was useless.

SPLAT!.

With a final, dry sound, the creature collapsed.

Seraphina looked up to assess the result of her attack.

There was no one there.

Her pink eyes glowed with an unnatural intensity and a certain mysticism as she scanned the sky.

"Tsk... they escaped. Fuck... cough!, cough!. Fuck..."

She clicked her tongue, when she understood that I don't end up with any of them.

More worrying was her condition: she looked like a time bomb.

It had consumed enormous amounts of mana in seconds... and yet the core was still performing its natural function, supplying and replenishing it.

In those conditions, that was not an advantage.

It was a sentence.

Among the rubble, the doppelgänger emerged.

"Ugh... damn. what did I get myself into, Fuck... everything's a mess. Damn... but now I know: it was that banished piece of shit. It's the source of everything that changed and the demons went crazy here and there, ugh, by the trail left by Oryx's crude use of space magic they didn't go far. We have to be quick."

As she spat out complaints between gasps, she could barely stand. She was as bad off as Seraphina: one arm and part of her side were completely gone.

Even so, she immediately headed for the corpse, not the snake's, but the other one, which was a kind of green orangutan that had died as a sacrifice so that Noha would be unharmed.

"Do you think you can handle it?...."

"Ugh, I don't know, damn it! That bastard only has tenth-rank beasts?!... Without purification, which keeps most of the chaotic mana stable, the berserk or even the flexibility... ugh! I'm not going to last much longer... It doesn't look like you're going to last much longer either..."

The doppelganger activated the demonization.

Seraphina knew it.

Those Three had not fled.

Noha was petty and vindictive; Mitrass, meticulous. With those personalities, they wouldn't leave risk factors like them alive. They would come back. No doubt about it.

And none of the three had given their best. They had not brought out their hidden cards or unleashed their full power.

They were reorganizing. Preparing to come back, kill her .

And the most important factor is that they need to get the ring back.

When they come back they would be more careful. More coordinated.

This was really starting... and they were up against the clock, so they wouldn't sit back and wait for them.

Seraphina felt her body - and the doppelganger's - crumbling. They wouldn't last much longer.

Worse: a specific Skill was vibrating strongly, wanting to break free from the suppression of her blessing.

If she held that kind of power too long, the consequences would be dire.

"Good. spatium solve."

The doppelganger began to chant a spell. her body was degrading even faster than hers. her hadn't been there long and she was already the same, or worse.

She gritted her teeth. They braced themselves.

As he readied himself, Seraphina inspected the ring.

Fortunately - or unfortunately - not just one, but all the seedlings were still there.

So what the demon had said was not a delusion.

That pissed her off even more.

And that feeling came back.

It was what she hated the most.

It wasn't about losing control—she knew that thinking like that was arrogance, an idea that led straight to an early death. What bothered her was that things were moving in a specific direction.

A direction that seemed to point to her. At her happiness.

As if something was trying to forcefully correct itself, pushing her to repeat the fate of her alternate self and snatch away what she cherished most.

She knew that fate didn't work that way. Least of all for someone with one of the fourteen legacies.

There should be no such thing as a "corrective force".

And yet...everything lined up that way.

It was so improbable that it infuriated her.

Her berserker Skill was being stimulated more than she had anticipated throughout the fight.

Now she was determined.

That bastards would not run away.

With all the seedlings in her possession, they would hunt her down, either she would die or they would.

"Huh?..."

Or so she thought-until the ring she was holding suddenly disappeared from her hand.

For an instant, confusion hit her. Then she understood.

They had played them; the damn ring had a recovery function.

"shit!!! Leave the secondary spells to number two, hurry up!!.'"

The oppressive feeling became suffocating. Her anger crossed another threshold.

"Sons of bitches... SPATII CONCORDIA ."

The doppelganger was just as furious. She took it without hesitation.

And they both disappeared.

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